Rating: 
Summary: Fingernails on chalkboard or Ulysses? Fingernails please!
Review: You shouldn't have to be a literary expert to enjoy a novel. Why anyone would say this is the best novel of the 20th century is beyond me. Joyce seems to have many different themes going and breaks new literary ground in this lengthy novel - but why all in one work? This book is extremely difficult to read, to say the least.This book has so much innuendo and hidden meanings that it makes your head spin! What's with all the foreign languages? A novel should be enjoyable and not so much a study guide. A blind man can see that ("tap tap tap tap"). What book would you wish upon your worst enemy? Ulysses by James Joyce in any form. Ghost of William Shakespeare Friends, Romans, Countrymen - lend me your annotated copy of Ulysses! Maybe Im being too hard on the book but I dont think so I will give it another shot in a few years with a copy of cliff notes in my hand but I dont think it will help very much can you read this you should check out the last chapter of this utterly pretentious socalled novel by the way dont tell reviewers of this or any book that they are inexperienced you shouldnt have to go to Joyce 101 to understand a novel I wish I could give no stars
Rating: 
Summary: The Greatest Ever
Review: The enormity of this work by the greatest writer there ever was never fails to stun me. Joyce's masterpiece is largely unread beacuse it has been branded "difficult", but people who make this claim are simply not able to take in serious literature. Anyone who thinks that Joyce has a rival as the greatest writer in history needs only to read this book to be convinced. To get the full satisfaction from this book I think the reader needs to have read the works of Homer frist to understand the greatness and true meaning of the greatest book ever. Forget Plexus, Nexus and all that, forget to kill a mocking bird and all other pretenders, this book is the greatest.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Joyce's Ulysses stands as a mountain in the centre of the wasteland of 20th century fiction. It is the landmark that reaches into the pages of every novel written since, it is polymath. But it's a darned difficult read. Each chapter is written not just in a new form, but in a completely new style. It demands a shift in mindset as one progresses through the book. In some cases that shift is required from sentence to sentence, or indeed from word to word. It's not a novel for the casual reader. To get anything out of it, one must be experienced. The annotations do help, but a broad knowledge of international literature, and indeed international language would be a boon when working one's way through the time-honoured pages. Personally, I'd buy it just for the 'Ithaca' chapter. It's pure art (or science, in fact), and in my humble opinion an incredible achievement in anti-narrative that is unsurpassed. Enough sycophancy. Ulysses is glorious, and that is truth.
Rating:
Summary: Oh man oh man, this is really lovely
Review: Wow. I have started this book three times, at about two-year intervals, also reading small parts of it separately at various times, but I finally finished it straight through and I can't believe how great it is, I never expected this, though I've been half-obsessed with Joyce since I bought Finnegans Wake with perfect serendipity in seventh grade because I thought it had "words I don't know." [Back to Ulysses] I've always loved the beginning, but it really gets a lot better past the halfway point, with Nighttown and the Ithaca chapter especially, and the thing that struck me most was the absolute loveliness of the ending. It's bloody famous and often quoted, but you don't get a sense until you've read the whole thing that where other books leave you begging for more or hoping them to come to an end more quickly, this ending is *perfectly* satisfying. [You can find more rigorous criticism elsewhere. This is my emotional response.]
Rating: 
Summary: This is a Great Book
Review: The last 200+ pages of this book were fantastic, including the night scenes in town. I have not read English poetry and therefore was lost for an earier 200 pages. Joyce's references to Parnell were interesting, as was the singular reference to U.S. Grant. Leopold Bloom is an example, I suppose, of the exception to the single mindedness of these Irish people. Dublin was a lovely city, however, clearly not diverse enough for Joyce. I liked this book for the exposure given me to the English language. Joyce was a master with the pen (as was Paul). Do I read Finnegan's Wake? How can I not?
Rating:
Summary: Joyce was the one true literary genius of the century.
Review: Only on my 3rd or 4th attempt did i settle down and finally read this book. I actually saw Joseph Strick's 1967 film recently and although only a fraction of the book makes it to the screen, i found it more informative than any 'guide' you care to buy to help you. The range of linguistic styles, the mindboggling clever plotting, the dazzling knowledge,the unbelievably human sexual passages and above all the spectacular humour are for me all the elements that make Ulysses the definitive vision of how words make up a story that can depict the our condition. All I can say is that I got to Ulysses having already worked my way through the later innovators of the century - Pynchon,Beckett, Gaddis,Coover,Burroughs etc etc and it turns out that almost everything they have said can be found in Ulysses, and Joyce is always more touching, more beautiful, and more anything-you-care-to-mention.
Rating:
Summary: the minor proves the major
Review: Is Ulysses the greatest novel of the century? Yes, surpassing all other literary endeavors in scope, depth, and intelligence. Is it unintelligible? No, nor is it undecidable, but only pointedly, significantly ambiguous. Why this quality? So that the reader must work as hard (if not harder)than the author himself did when composing the novel. And it is a composition. Why should the reader work? So that he/she might learn something substantial; so that he/she will be able to view the world with a new mind's eye. Does it suffice to read the book only once and quickly? Nope. Diagnosis for anyone who assigns the book less than five stars: idler; incapable of intense intellectual effort; probably likes vonnegut.
Rating:
Summary: The 'classic'
Review: I don't know if I understood Ulysses as a 'classic' except in the sense that it is an exercise for 'erudition'. Nevertheless, with the assistance of a Cliff Notes edition I was able to go through the whole length of the book and actually understand what was going on. In all, it wasn't too bad. I know this is a seminal work and has influenced a lot of writers, as a novel itself it cannot get 5 stars though.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly crafted gibberish
Review: James Joyce turn a left turn from Tolstoy's idea of elegantly revealing the stream of consciousness, unto pouring it by the bucket on the reader's head. Unfortunately, thousand of less competent hacks have followed in his footsteps making the latter half of the 20th century the garbage dump of literature.
Rating:
Summary: one of the greatest books ever written
Review: whoever gives this book less that six stars out of five is ver likely to be just not mature enough to handle serious literature
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